


Half for you, half for me

by Butterfish



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: AU, Break Up, Divorce, Love, M/M, Wedding, married
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-18
Updated: 2015-08-18
Packaged: 2018-04-15 11:20:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,644
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4604799
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterfish/pseuds/Butterfish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As they divorce, they split everything down the middle - half for Arthur, half for Alfred. But can you split memories?</p>
            </blockquote>





	Half for you, half for me

“Are you clearing the closet, or should I?”

Arthur hesitated. He looked up the closet. It looked… gigantic. Somehow, he never noticed. He just hung his shirt and closed the doors. But now, knowing it would need emptying, it seemed huge. He looked at Alfred.

“Well?” Alfred asked. He stood in the doorway, hugging a box of books. He never read. Still he wanted them. Half-and-half. Everything would be cut in half. Half of the furniture, half of the souvenirs from Thailand, half of the food in the fridge. That’s what they agreed to - a divorce cut right down the middle, just like their lives. Half the happiness.

Arthur rolled up his sleeves and sighed, “I’ll do it.”

“Remember-” Alfred said, but he was cut off,

“I’ll remember -  _half is yours_ ,” Arthur grimaced.

Alfred looked like he wanted to comment, but instead he turned and walked downstairs.

Arthur waited until he heard the front door shut. Then he raised his voice, “Half is yours, half is mine, what a fine-fine deal!” He stared at the door. He stuck out his tongue. Then he got to work.

As he rummaged through old toys, blankets stuffed away never to be used again, discarded books and electronics that didn’t work, he wondered,  _how did it come to this?_  Twenty years ago, they were young and in love. Ten years ago, they were married and in love. One year ago, as they hiked across Cornwall, rain streaming down their backs and cars rushing past them on the highway, Alfred took his hand and promised him eternal life through love. Still here he was, on his knees, separating used batteries into two sections so that Alfred could get his half, and Arthur thought,  _where is that eternal love?_

The closet was a wasteland of useless things. Other couples had a drawer, how did they managed to accumulate enough stuff to fill out a whole closet? Arthur pushed aside winter jackets and sandals, and he reached towards the back of the space. He bit his tongue and narrowed his eyes as he concentrated on grabbing the IKEA bag stuffed in the corner. He would put all Alfred’s stuff in there, and, he decided, take extra good care to ensure he got not half, but  _all_  the useless cords and computer manuals that he’d insisted to keep at every buy, because ‘you never know what happens!’

“Come on,” he murmured as his fingertips brushed across the plastic bag, but he couldn’t quite snatch it. Just like he’d been unable to grasp the seriousness of the argument he had with Alfred three months earlier. At first, it’d seemed like any other argument about something silly - Arthur wanted them to spend more time together, Alfred wanted to have more freedom, and so they yapped yapped yapped - until Alfred threw his hands into the air and shouted,

“I want complete freedom!” It wasn’t until Arthur saw his Google searches for divorce lawyers that he realised what Alfred meant by it.

“Because it’s so much easier,” Arthur grunted and finally caught the bag, “to just escape reality, isn’t it-  _oumph_.” He bit his lower lip in surprise as he found the IKEA bag heavy. With difficulty, he dragged it past the jackets and onto the floor, and he peered inside. There, at the bottom, was a box.

Arthur dragged down the sides of the bag to get a closer look, and he gasped, “You’re kidding me…”

The box was blue with red ribbons wrapped around it. On the top, it read ‘Alfred and Arthur’s Wedding Box’. The opening had been sealed with a silver bow. Arthur sat down and let his fingers stroke across the plastic diamonds glued onto the sides. This was the time box they’d made together ten years earlier. It was something Alfred had once seen in a movie - each couple would write a letter, and they would put it in the time box, and twenty years later, they would open it together and read the letters and remember everything from that day once again.

But, Arthur realised and smiled a bitter smile, twenty years never got to pass.

He touched the bow, but he didn’t untie it. For a moment, he hesitated. It was private. In a way, it was as much Alfred’s as his, and they should open it together. ‘Maybe,’ he pondered, ‘I’ll wait for Alfred to return and do it with him.’

His gaze flickered to the bookshelf across the room. It had been part emptied. Alfred hadn’t paid attention to whether series were cut in half or not - he had taken  _exactly_  34 books out of 68.

Arthur grimaced, “You wanted half? You’ll get half!” and he opened the box.

Despite its size and weight, the box was practically empty. He picked up two small stones, each engraved with their names. They used them as name-signs on their wedding table. He smiled as he turned over his own and noticed Alfred’s signature on the bottom. When he got drunk, he grabbed a pen and just started scribbling love-notes all over Arthur’s wedding things. This one read, ‘Alfred loves Arthur forever and ever more’.

Arthur popped one stone down to his right, and one to his left, right next to the stack of batteries.

Next were the group-picture. Arthur held it up into the light to get a better look of everyone’s faced. There was Ludwig and Feliciano, smartly dressed in blue suits (Ludwig’s looked crumbled, though, and Arthur remembered how he was embarrassed about it the whole day, informing everyone that ‘Travelling is impossible with starched shirts!’). Francis’ pink suit stood out like a drop of ink on a white canvas. He grimaced. Then followed Matthew. ‘Cute as always,’ Arthur thought and smiled. He wasn’t facing the camera, being momentarily distracted by Francis’ attempt to put roses in his hair. And then-…

Alfred. With his fingertips, Arthur traced his black suit, the golden tie, and the blue socks peeking out just below the cut of his trousers. Gold and blue. Those were the colours of the wedding. Gold for like the starts above them, gleaming, and blue like the sky, endless space of possibilities.

“You hated the gold,” Arthur whispered, “you said it was girly, and silver was more manly. But you wore it. For me.” He bit his inner cheek until he could taste blood. Then he put the picture away, took in a deep breath, and finally reached for the letter.

Alfred’s envelope was blue. In golden letters, it read, ‘For Arthur’, signed on the back as ‘LOVE OF MY LIFE’. Arthur tore the envelope in a way that cut the letters in half. Then he dragged out the letter.

It was short. Upon seeing it, Arthur almost wanted to laugh in annoyance. He remembered spending hours on writing his, and he filled seven pages (back and front!) with notes on how he loved Alfred, and how he imagined their future together, and how he wouldn’t want any other man. But Alfred? One page. He turned it over. Nothing. One page. That was what he was worth.

Arthur sat back, flattened the paper, and started to read:

Dear Arthur,

When you read this, it’s year 2024. Crazy how time flies! Do you still wear cardigans on cold summer mornings? Do you still drink tea? (I know you do). Do you still love me? (I hope you do).

Yesterday, I sat watching the sky, and you know, I thought to myself - there are so many men out there. There are so many faces to love and bodies to touch and souls to get inspired by. But only one like yours. Only one face I want to see in the morning. One body I want to touch in the evening. One soul I want to merge with in the night. I thought this, and then suddenly, among the stars, there you are. You are the moon.

I know you wanted gold as stars, and blue as the sky, and really, it’s cute. I get it. But Arthur, I wanted silver like the moon - like you, always present, always visible, always mine.

So remember, remember, remember; when I go astray, be my moon, be my light.

Be mine,

Alfred.

Arthur didn’t speak. He cried. He felt the tears streaming down his cheeks, and though he didn’t say a sound, not a sob, his lips shivered when he dropped the letter into his own stack of batteries and stones and, now, love. A stack of love to keep. But what good is love when cut in half?

Arthur curled up by the closet, and he stayed like that, even when the front door opened, when Alfred walked the stairs, as he stood in the doorway. He stayed like that, even when Alfred moved the box, when he cut open his letter, when he read it. He stayed like that, even when Alfred’s arms wrapped around him, picked him off the floor, embraced him like the universe embraces the Earth - endless, eternal embrace.

He pressed his face to Arthur’s shoulder. He could smell the night on him. He’d been standing outside for hours. “What were you doing?” he mumbled. “What were you doing, leaving me like this?”

Alfred pressed his nose to Arthur’s hair and took in a deep breath. “I was lost,” he mumbled. “I was-…” His voice trailed out. He took in a few more deep breaths, then said, “I was looking for my moon.”

“Did you find it?”

Alfred’s fingers stroked up his spine. They intertwined in his hair. His lips pressed to his forehead, “That and much more.”

Half for you. Half for me. The batteries went back in the closet. The books back in the shelf. The box got two new letters and a new name - Alfred and Arthur’s Promise Box, to be opened: 2034.


End file.
